Gone in the Night

by Mary-Jane Riley

  He closed his eyes. Shook his head. ‘Goddam it, Alex, why don’t you leave it to the professionals?’

  ‘Because the professionals are doing damn all about it,’ she retorted. ‘And if you know he’s a drug dealer and all the rest, why haven’t you arrested him before now?’

  ‘Because—’ He lowered his voice an octave. ‘Boney is small fry. He likes to think he’s Mr Big, but he’s someone’s bitch, that’s all. We want to catch the top man. Or woman. Whoever he reports to, works for. That’s why we haven’t brought him in yet.’

  ‘I see. You know his real name is Nigel Bennet? And he went to school with the Riders?’

  ‘Yes, Alex. Dammit. Stop meddling.’

  ‘Meddling?’ She leaned forward. ‘He broke into my flat. Told me to stop looking for Rick.’

  ‘He broke into your flat?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Broke in? Did you call the police?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sam, you’ve told me how stretched the force is.’

  ‘That’s one thing, Alex, but when someone like Boney forces his way into your flat, that’s quite another.’

  ‘He didn’t force his way in. Well, I suppose he did the first time—’

  ‘The first time?’ Sam’s face was a picture. Apoplectic, she’d have called it. ‘Alex. You could have been hurt. Boney is a nobody in the scheme of things but he does hurt people. I don’t want him to hurt you. He didn’t hurt you, did he?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, not physically.’ She had to stop herself from shuddering as she remembered his menacing tones, his threats to her family.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I will get him picked up, bring him in for questioning, put the frighteners on him and—’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I see why you need him out on the streets. And I’m a big girl, I can cope. And he didn’t hurt me. Anyway, that’s not why I told you. Don’t you see, he must be involved in Rick’s disappearance somehow, otherwise why would he threaten me? And also—’

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out. It was David Gordon’s work number.

  She frowned. What did he want? ’Do you mind if I get this?’

  He shook his head. ‘More coffee?’ he mouthed.

  She gave him the thumbs up.

  ‘Alex? Alex Devlin,’ whispered a woman’s voice. Not David. Someone else calling on his line.

  ‘Yes. Who is this? Can you speak up?’

  ‘No. I can’t. I need to talk to you. About the jobs homeless people are being offered. I know something about them.’ There was trembling in the voice.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Sadie, from Fight for the Homeless. You gave me your card. I didn’t know whether to phone—’ The young girl from behind the reception desk at David’s office, she remembered. ‘And I haven’t got much time.’

  ‘Okay. Shall I ring you back?’

  ‘No. I have to go now. Can you meet me? Today. After work?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Where?’

  ‘In the wine bar on Inkerman Street. Do you know it? About six?’

  ‘I’ll be there. Can I have your mobile number, just in case?’ But she was talking to dead air.

  Sam sat down with some more coffee. ‘Trouble?’

  She shook her head, looking at her phone. ‘The receptionist from David’s work wants to see me.’

  ‘David Gordon?’ He sipped his coffee, leaving a frothy moustache on his top lip.

  ‘Yes. David Gordon. Fight for the Homeless. I went to the charity event at Riders’ Farm with him. How did you know I meant him?’

  She couldn’t help it, she pointed to his top lip, and he laughed and wiped the froth away.

  ‘Our Assistant Chief Constable said she’d seen you both at the event. I deduced that you probably only knew one David with a receptionist. Of course, I could have been wrong, but I am a pretty good detective.’

  She thought back and remembered David pointing out the top copper. ‘Small world.’

  He grinned. ‘You can’t do a lot in this area without someone noticing. Carry on.’

  ‘That’s right. Anyway, I went to see him – David – in case he could help.’

  ‘About Rick Winterton?’

  She nodded. ‘An obvious choice, really. He is involved with people on the streets at all levels. If anyone knew anything about people disappearing, I thought he would.’

  ‘And did he?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nope. He said not. But listen, when Boney was in my flat he said something like “we’ll find him eventually”.’

  ‘“We’ll find him eventually”?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said eagerly.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Don’t you see what this means? Somehow Rick got away from the two men who were supposed to be taking him to hospital, but I suspect they were never going to do that anyway, and now these people – I don’t know who – are looking for him, and Boney was sent as a messenger boy to frighten me and Cora into not looking for him. There’s something going here, Sam, don’t you think?’ The words had all come out in a rush and she hoped she had made some sort of sense.

  Sam shifted around on his chair. He drummed his fingers on the table. ’Don’t you think you’re getting a bit obsessed about this?’

  ‘Obsessed?’ Her heart sank as she saw the sceptical look on Sam’s face; that was okay, he was a police officer, he needed hard evidence. Alex crossed her arms. ‘Sam, I was threatened by Boney earlier, now this girl – Sadie – is whispering she wants to meet me in the wine bar on Inkerman Street. Come on, surely you must think there’s something in it?’

  ‘Hmm.’ He sat back and they both drank their coffee. ‘And this receptionist – what did you say her name was?’

  ‘Sadie.’

  ‘And she’s meeting you after work?’

  ‘Yes. She sounded—’

  ‘What?’

  Alex hesitated. ‘As if she needed to talk.’

  Sam smiled. ‘She will have a good listener in you.’ He looked at his watch and stood up. ‘I’ve got to go.’ He took out his wallet.

  Alex shook her head, taking out her purse. ‘This is on me. But Sam, I really believe there’s something in this. If you could get that glass looked at quickly and think about what I’ve said, please? There must be a reason for Rick to have gone missing. I really think he escaped from those men and is on the run. Please, think about it.’

  He nodded. ‘I will. But think, Alex, why hasn’t Rick gone to the police if there was something dodgy going on?’

  ‘Because he’s homeless and he thinks you won’t listen?’

  He rubbed his forehead. ‘We would listen. I would listen. He’s not stupid. He would know that.’

  She bit her lip. Could Sam be right? Maybe she was obsessing.

  After a moment she nodded.

  ‘See you around,’ he said.

  ‘See you around.’

  ‘Come on, Ethel,’ Alex said to the dog, as she untied her from outside the café. ‘I guess we’ve got a fair bit of time to kill before we meet Sadie. I’ll take you for a walk somewhere. Whitlingham, maybe. Or around the university lake.’

  As they came out from under the cover of the Royal Arcade, it had come on to rain heavily.

  ‘Is this ever going to stop?’ she muttered.

  Ethel whimpered in reply.

  ‘I know, old girl, but we’re not far from the car.’ She pulled the collar of her coat up around her ears and stepped out onto the sodden pavement. Everybody was hurrying, umbrellas poking their way through the crowds.

  A girl dressed in a thin mac, her hair plastered to the sides of her face, hollow cheeks and feverish eyes, stood in front of her. ‘Alex, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes?’ Alex smiled.

  ‘I’m Emmy.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Emmy looked as though she was about to burst into tears.

  ‘And you’ve got Ethel. Martin’s dog.’

  ‘Yes.’
/>
  The girl sniffed, and wiped her nose with her sleeve. Her hair was dripping water.

  ‘Emmy, do you want to go somewhere and have something to eat?’

  The girl shook her head and didn’t look as though she was going to say anything else. Was she worried about the dog, perhaps? ‘I’m only keeping Ethel until Martin comes back.’

  Emmy’s shoulders drooped. ‘I don’t know if he’ll ever come back.’

  ‘He will.’ Alex sounded surer than she felt.

  ‘Why did he leave Ethel? He would never leave Ethel.’

  Alex couldn’t answer that.

  ‘And now Tiger’s gone.’

  Alex put her hand on Emmy’s shoulder. ‘I was so sorry to hear that.’

  ‘And did you also hear it was an overdose? How did someone who hated drugs overdose? First Lindy, now Tiger. I hope it’s not Martin next.’

  ‘Hang on, did you say Lindy?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard? She was found strewn across the railway line somewhere between Stowmarket and Ipswich. She was identified by her tattoos. Suicide, I heard. Her mum came across from Wales. Such a long way. At least her mum might have enough money for a funeral. Or maybe someone’ll set up a JustGiving page. Or there won’t be enough money and she’ll have a pauper’s funeral. They still have those, you know.’

  Alex did know, and she couldn’t say anything. Her mouth was dry. Two dead. Lindy and Tiger. Within days of each other. Both suicides. Supposedly. And where had Lindy been before she died?

  ‘I don’t expect you know where Lindy had been? You know, all those days she was missing?’

  Emmy was crouching down patting Ethel. ‘No.’ She looked up at Alex. ‘I think she had a new job, though. She was right excited and said it was a new chance for her. That was about two weeks before she left her pitch. She didn’t tell me what it was. I didn’t ask, you see. I was a bit jealous.’ Tears flowed down Emmy’s face, mingling with the rain. ‘She was happy, you know. Really happy. And I was jealous of her and her happiness. But if she was happy, why did she kill herself?’ She straightened up and wiped the wet off her face. Rain or tears, Alex wasn’t sure. ‘Gotta go now. Nice seeing Ethel.’

  ‘Emmy, if you hear anything about Martin, or anything that seems strange to you about Tiger’s and Lindy’s deaths – anything else strange I mean – you will let me know?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Do you have a phone?’

  ‘Stolen.’

  ‘I’ll call by at the underpass every so often, see if you’re there. Or you could go to the police and—’

  ‘The cops? Don’t make me laugh.’ She fluttered her fingers. ‘I’ll see you.’

  Alex watched her go. Emmy was right. Why did Tiger overdose on drugs when he wasn’t any sort of user? Why did Lindy go to the railway line to end her life when, if Emmy was right, she was happy for once? Why?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  DAY FOUR: EVENING

  Alex relaxed in a leather chair in the wine bar waiting for Sadie. She had bought herself a glass of Sauvignon, which was going down very nicely. There was also a jug of water and another glass on the table – she wasn’t going to be able to drink wine all evening. She stretched her legs out in front of her and admired the black and white photographs of the iconic sights of Paris hanging on the whitewashed walls. Cheesy, but effective. The place was full, mainly with people who had come in for a glass or two after work. Classical music played gently in the background.

  It was no good. She couldn’t sit here doing nothing. The island. She wanted to know more about the Riders’ mysterious island. And there was the screech she had heard. Dismissed by Jamie, but for her it was both human and not human. And why would Jamie never have been over there as he’d claimed? Surely even idle curiosity would make him want to see what was on an island owned by his family?

  She took her laptop out of her bag and began searching for anything to do with Gisford Ness.

  There was the inevitable Wiki entry that didn’t tell her any more than she already knew. A spit of land … hostile and potentially dangerous site … privately owned … closed to the public. Then there were the Google entries she had seen before about aliens on the island, about government experiments, experiments on monkeys. Screeches heard in the middle of the night – well, she could certainly vouch for that.

  Then she found an old East Anglian Daily Times article reproduced on a blog called Alien Suffolk that talked about the anthrax testing on Gisford Ness during the Second World War. Island leased from the Rider family … more than fifty sheep killed … locals told to keep away … okay, she knew all that. The blogger asked if there was a government conspiracy going on and thought the island was like Area 51 in Nevada in the USA – where UFOs that had landed on earth were taken for examination. Alex rolled her eyes at this.

  She looked at her watch. Then at the door of the pub. More people were spilling in. She’d been waiting half an hour. Perhaps Sadie had changed her mind. Maybe she had decided it was too much trouble. Alex tried ringing the Fight for the Homeless number. Then David’s direct line. No answer from either, and of course she didn’t have Sadie’s mobile number. The receptionist must surely have left the office by now, and it would take, what? ten minutes to walk to the wine bar?

  Anything could have happened. Sadie might have had to take a detour. See someone else first. Perhaps she was ill. She would wait a little longer.

  Back at her laptop, Alex found another article from the East Anglian reproduced on a different blog, this time about the Suffolk coast. The article dated from the 1980s and quoted Joe Rider as saying they wanted to return the island to its original state, and the family planned to ‘nurture the wildlife and the shingle vegetation for the public to eventually enjoy’.

  They were taking a bloody long time about it then. And she wondered how much ‘nurturing’ had gone on and how much more was needed. No member of the public was allowed near the island, that was very clear from her conversations with Jamie.

  She googled some more, but didn’t find anything else interesting. She needed to dig deeper, but hadn’t the resources. It was time to ask for some help.

  Her wine was finished. Another look at her watch told her it was seven o’clock and there was still no sign of Sadie.

  All at once she was beginning to have a bad feeling about Sadie.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  DAY FOUR: EVENING

  Red barriers and a police accident sign cordoned off the road between the pasta place and the Thai restaurant. A white forensic tent had been placed over the victim. An ambulance stood nearby, a man and a woman wrapped in foil blankets sitting on the open edge of the vehicle, paramedics chatting to them. A police car with its flashing blue lights was stationed either side of the tape and officers were directing the traffic away from the area. Queues were building up on the roads around the scene. Onlookers held up their phones as if at a concert, which made Sam Slater want to go and tear them off each and every one of them.

  ‘Ghouls,’ he muttered, as he flashed his warrant card at one of the officers standing guard. ‘DI Sam Slater. I was in the area and—’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  He thought the officer looked pissed off, standing there in the pouring rain and the cold when he’d probably been thinking of his supper and a pint. Didn’t blame him.

  The officer let him through.

  ‘Who’s in charge?’ he asked a man with ‘Police Collision Investigation’ emblazoned on the back of his neon yellow jacket.

  ‘DI Paterson. He’s in the tent.’

  Slater nodded and donned a paper suit he’d taken out of the boot of the car parked behind the cordon.

  The tent was cramped and smelled of blood and fear and death. The pathologist, police photographer and two police officers were huddled under its roof.

  ‘What are you doing here, Slater? Thought it was your day off,’ said Paterson.

  He nodded. ‘It is, but I was in the area and heard the commotion. I th
ought I’d come and see what was going on.’

  ‘Hit-and-run. Young girl. Aged about twenty. Dragged under the wheels of a van. Witnesses said the van seemed to go over her twice. Made a good job of it.’

  Slater glanced at the girl’s body. Her head was crushed, one eye hanging obscenely from its socket. Her jaw had been pushed to an unnatural angle. Her limbs were twisted to impossible positions. Blood all over her. He was thankful he had a strong stomach. ‘Accident or deliberate do you think?’

  ‘From the sound of it, deliberate.’

  ‘Though drivers do odd things when they think they’ve hit something. Go backwards, forwards, trying to get away from the body. Especially if they’ve got previous motoring convictions or are under the influence,’ said Slater.

  Paterson pursed his lips. ‘All true.’ He was thoughtful. ‘But, I don’t know. Something seems “off” about the whole thing.’

  Slater nodded. Paterson was good. ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘No, all under control. Thanks for stopping by.’

  Slater exited the tent and pulled off his suit when he got near to the barrier, shrugging his raincoat back on.

  ‘Nasty business, sir,’ said the police constable, rain dripping off his nose.

  ‘Yes, Constable. Nasty business.’

  He pulled his collar up and walked off into the night. He would be seeing that young girl’s face in his dreams.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  DAY FIVE: MORNING

  The beeping was soothing, gentle. What was it? An alarm? Should he be getting up to go to work? What was his work?

  Rick opened his eyes slowly. White all around him. He blinked and turned his head slowly. Machines to one side, monitoring his vital signs. That was the beeping noise. Not work. He hadn’t been to work for a long time. He hadn’t had a proper life for a long time. But he had a purpose. He remembered that now. More importantly, he remembered what that purpose was.

  A table with a plastic jug and a plastic cup. A straw. Bare magnolia walls. He turned his head the other way. A window streaked with rain. Granite sky. Nothing else. A door in the corner. To a bathroom, perhaps? Three more beds in the room. No one in them. Another door to the side. Open. He could hear chatter and laughter. The smell of antiseptic. The rattle of trolleys. Blue uniforms – dark and light – hurried past his open doorway.